Missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) is a national epidemic that is just now getting the attention it deserves. Native women and girls are murdered or missing at much higher rates than other racial groups. And as of 2018, New Mexico leads the nation in missing and murdered indigenous women.
For this reason, I’ll be posting 3 MMIW a week to highlight their cases and try to raise awareness of this social justice issue. Many of these cases have few or no details. Some don’t even have photos. But we can’t forget their names.
Tyrannus White and Eugena Martinez
Tyrannus White and Eugena Martinez were an on-again-off-again couple. They were both Navajo and lived on the Navajo Nation. They had recently gotten back together when they met at the Red Roof Inn in Gallup on March 9, 2019. Neither would be seen alive again.
Eugena, known to her friends and family as Gena, was very active on two Facebook accounts. All social media activity ceased on March 9. This suggests that day was when she died. Her last two status updates suggested some type of drama was occurring in her life: “Nope not today, I don’t need that today, I’m sure I don’t need that today,” and “Wow!!!! Ok now I see what they all tried to do but I jus hope yall know when its my turn I ain’t gonna play nice….. probably I dont play so anyway hope yall have a good day.”
There were also some strange comments on Gena’s posts. A person she often spoke with on Facebook demanded to know where the cash was from some items that she gave Gena to sell. Was Gena killed over this? This person did not appear to have conflict with Gena prior to this.
Her body was eventually recovered on an unspecified date and no details were released about where she was found or how she died. Without those details, it is hard to tell what may have happened to the pair.
Interestingly, Tyrannus White has not been found yet. However, his family called the phone and it would always ring for several months, suggesting someone was keeping it charged. It’s not clear if this was a prepaid phone or on a plan paid for by the family. If it was prepaid, then someone was keeping minutes on it. At one point, the phone died, but then someone charged it again. I’m not sure why the police never pinged the phone. If they did, those details have not been released.
Tyrannus White’s daughter, Rayven, swears he would never do anything to Eugena Martinez. She says that he was a kind and gentle man who loved his two kids and remained best friends with his baby mama. He had a criminal history, but none of his charges were for violent offenses. His family is concerned for his welfare and believes he met with foul play along with Gena.
Which brings me to my theory: He and Gena may have gone to the Red Roof Inn that day for a narcotics transaction that went sour and both were murdered as a result. The reason I believe this is because Tyrannus White had been arrested before for distributing marijuana and also possession of a small quantity of meth, likely for personal use, not distribution. He listed himself as “self-employed” on Facebook, suggesting he may have still been selling weed.
If Tyrannus White also died that day, then his body has yet to be found. I suspect it is near where Gena was found, but the land is rugged and vast out there. It could be he was buried deeply or put on private property so he hasn’t been located yet. I worry that someone will find his bones one day and then Tyrannus White will simply be added to the tragically long list of unidentified decedents from the Navajo Nation/Four Corners area. What a sad concept for his family. I hope he is found and properly identified soon.
Tyrannus White left behind two kids. Gena also left behind two kids. I hope that her unexplained death is solved. I think it sounds highly suspicious and I think someone killed her. I also really hope that Tyrannus White is found soon.
Tyrannus White is described as a Native American male, 5’8″, 160-170 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He has several distinctive tattoos, including an eyeball on his upper arm, “Rayven” and “Tayven” for his kids on arms, feathers and Navajo baskets on his chest, and “White” across his back. His birthday is October 6, 1977. The day he disappeared, he was wearing a red, gray, and black Chicago Bulls jacket, black pants, and a black Bulls cap.
Gloria Jean King
Gloria Jean King and her husband resided in Albuquerque. On September 9, 1996, they made a trip to Farmington in separate vehicles. It is not clear why they were going to Farmington. They stopped in Grants for fast food, then drove to Milan and parked to enjoy their dinner together. Then they took off again.
Gloria never arrived at their destination in Farmington. Her vehicle was found parked at the El Rancho motel in Gallup. The odd thing about this is that Gallup would be 59 miles out of their way from Milan, and 111 miles away from Farmington. The vehicle was empty but it’s not stated if her belongings were left inside or not. No sign of her has turned up for years.
I wonder if she may have been a victim of Robert Fry? He was active during that time. Also, it is possible that her husband did something to her in Milan.
Why was she at the motel – to get some rest, to meet someone, or was her car taken there by a person who abducted her? Did motel staff see her at the motel? Did police find out who motel staff saw driving the vehicle? That seems like an obvious thing for police to ask, but they seem to really bungle First Nations cases. If only we had Chee and — from Tony and Ann Hillerman’s books, right?
Gloria Jean King was Navajo (Dine) and between 5’3 – 5’4 and between 110 – 120 pounds. She had brown hair and brown eyes and a missing or severely scarred earlobe. She wore prescription glasses. Sometimes she used the last name Jarvison. She left behind several children. Her birthday is August 10, 1954. She was last seen in a maroon or red shirt.
Laverda Sorrell
Laverda met with her husband on July 4, 2002, to go out for an anniversary dinner. Her family knew that Sorrell was having an affair, but it’s not clear if her husband knew. However, she had recently asked him for a divorce, leading to many arguments and possibly physical altercations about her leaving.
After the dinner, her husband claimed he dropped Sorrell off at her job as a certified nurse aide. This is odd, though, because she was not scheduled to work that night. It’s not clear if her work was even open that night.
She has never been seen or heard from since. She is presumed deceased.
I wonder if her husband found out that Sorrell was having an affair and killed her in a jealous rage. Then he hid her body in a desolate spot.
Both the FBI and the Navajo Police are investigating, since she lived in New Mexico but worked in Arizona and is believed to have disappeared near Fort Defiance, AZ. Both places are in the Navajo Nation. I imagine she is buried somewhere between the two locations.
But the police have not worked with the Sorrell family. They go radio silent for months or even years. At some point, the case was updated from a missing persons case to a homicide case with body recovery. Yet there was no update.
Sorrel’s family is frustrated. They feel that the police put the blame on Laverda and didn’t take her case seriously. They feel that this case should have been closed by now, and the reason it hasn’t been is due to police incompetence and poor attitudes toward women. I think this culture of victim-blaming and hatred toward women on reservations is particularly disturbing since Navajo culture is a matriarchal culture that honors and celebrates women. It shows the lasting effects of colonialism and the way colonialism has really done its best to shatter and pervert Native American culture and belief systems. Going after women and allowing them to be hurt and killed shows a flagrant disregard for the tenets of Navajo culture and human rights. So many families have suffered as a result of this.
In the past couple years, major changes have been happening regarding MMIWR because of the advocacy of families like Laverda Sorrell’s. Velina Guy was fourteen when Laverda Sorrell disappeared and she and Laverda Sorrell’s daughter Tiffany, among other relatives, have never stopped fighting for Laverda Sorrell. Velina Guy recently got her sister’s case to be looked at by an attorney named Eliot Neal, who represents MMIP in the Southwest for the US Attorney’s Office. She also has retained Darlene Gomez to advocate for her family.
For the first time in months, after getting Neal on board, she finally heard from law enforcement that there was a new development in the case. That development hasn’t been announced but this news was in January 2024, so hopefully it will come for the family soon. They have dealt with the pain of not knowing what happened and not seeing justice for far too long.
Sorrel had three children and never got to meet her grandchildren. She also had many other loved ones, who fight for her now and advocate for other indigenous families with missing and murdered loved ones. But they shouldn’t have to. I hope that Sorrell is soon found and returned to her family for a proper burial, and I hope the person responsible for her disappearance (who seems kinda obvious) is put away for life before he either hurts another woman or dies and gets away with murder.
Sorrell is described as Native American, 5’1″, and 110 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. She wore glasses and her ears are pierced. her birthday is November 26, 1957.
The skeletal remains of UP53053 was found near Keams Canyon in Arizona in 2018 and gender, height, etc. could not be determined. Could this be Laverda? This would be 77 miles from Fort Defiance.
https://www.koat.com/article/20-years-later-laverda-sorrell-still-missing/40108298
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[…] 5’1”, but she vanished on April 28, 1994, and this Jane Doe had only been dead a few months. Gloria Jean King is another possibility but again the time interval is too long as King vanished in 1996. Jeanette […]